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Science, Technology, Invention in History:
Impact, Influence, Change

Examples of digitized images and documents from the National Archives and Records Administration related to the 1999 National History Day theme.
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Search the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) for digitized images and documents that may be helpful for National History Day research on Science, Technology, and Invention.

The following examples are just a few of the digitized images found by conducting ARC searches with the words railroads, atomic, and space.

The Transcontinental Railroad

Joining the tracks for the first transcontinental railroad, Promontory, Utah Territory, 1869. (ARC Identifier: 513341)

Annual Report from the Union Pacific Railroad Company announcing the connection of its rails with those of the Central Pacific Railroad, 1869.

View Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

The Atomic Bomb

Col. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., pilot of the ENOLA GAY, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, waves from his cockpit before the takeoff, August 6, 1945. (ARC Identifier: 535736)

A dense column of smoke rises more than 60,000 feet into the air over the Japanese port of Nagasaki, the result of an atomic bomb, the second ever used in warfare, dropped on the industrial center August 8, 1945, from a U.S. B-29 Superfortress. (ARC Identifier: 535795)

Facts About Fallout, 1955. Government Printing Office. (Search Hint: To retrieve the entire brochure, search in ARC by entering (ARC Identifier: 306714)

A valuable collection not in ARC:
The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Study Collection from Project Whistlestop at the Harry S. Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections
/bomb /large/bomb.htm

The Space Race

Memorandum of Conference with President Eisenhower on October 8, 1957. (This document relates to Sputnik and has a second page.) (ARC Identifier: 186623)

Photograph of the XS-1 in Flight. (ARC Identifier: 295649)

Pilot's Notes from the Ninth Powered Flight of the XS-1. (Search Hint: To retrieve pilot's notes from 5 other flights, search in ARC by entering 295642)

President Kennedy inspects interior of "Friendship 7." President Kennedy, Col. John Glenn, Jr., others. Cape Canaveral, FL, Hangar "S". (ARC Identifier: 194245)

Your Turn

ARC replaces its prototype, the NARA Archival Information Locator (NAIL). You can still perform a keyword, digitized image and location search. ARC's advanced functionalities also allow you to search by organization, person, or topic.

ARC is a searchable database that contains information about a wide variety of NARA holdings across the country. You can use ARC to search record descriptions by keywords or topics and retrieve digital copies of selected textual documents, photographs, maps, and sound recordings related to thousands of topics.

Currently, about 13% of NARA's vast holdings have been described in ARC. 124,000 digital images can be searched in ARC. In keeping with NARA's Strategic Plan, the percentage of holdings described in ARC will grow continually.

Be creative with your searches. Brainstorm as many terms that are related to your topic as possible. For example, if you are interested in technology during World War II and its impact on women in the workforce, instead of searching ARC for "Rosie the Riveter," try war + women (Identifier: 513675 ), or Navy + women (Identifier: 516170), or Navy + aviation + women (Identifier: 520742).

Five online activities designed to assist users in navigating through ARC and the rest of the National Archives and Records Administration Web site are available.

Teachers >

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272

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